The Gulf Coast White Marlin Shoot will take place this Friday and Saturday at Palafox Pier and Yacht Harbor at the end of Palafox Street in Downtown Pensacola. Anglers participating in the event were able to depart after Wednesday night’s captains meeting and can begin fishing at 3 p.m. on Thursday August 13.

Tournament directors decided to make a few changes for the 2015 event in hopes of making it bigger and better. For starters they brought the tournament back to Pensacola after holding it in Orange Beach for the past two years.

“We took it over to Orange Beach hoping to increase the participation, but we didn’t see much of a change, so we decided after last year’s that we would bring it back to Pensacola where there is a real need for fishing tournaments,” said director Rocky Jones.

Another big change is that anglers will now be allowed to weigh in blue marlin, but white marlin are now strictly catch-and-release. Taking that into consideration, there’s a good chance that spectators will get to see a big blue marlin brought to the dock.

In years’ past there has only been one division and one entry fee, but this year there’s a separate small boat division for participants with boats 36 foot and under. Small boats may depart on Friday for one day of fishing on Saturday.

The weigh in will be open from 5-8 p.m. both Friday and Saturday. Typically most of the excitement happens on Saturday night because the majority of the field will stay offshore Friday night. You can plan on the fun to last well beyond 8 p.m. on Saturday night as it will go on until every boat has weighed.

The overall winner will be determined by a point calculation of released billfish and blue marlin weighed in. Different than most billfish tournaments along the northern Gulf Coast a released white marlin is worth more points than a released blue marlin.

Anglers will be competing for a nice array of tournament cash awards and prizes, but there will likely be a few hundred thousand dollars up for grabs in the optional cash awards where teams will bet on the different species that they believe their crew will catch.

In addition to blue marlin, anglers will also be bringing in wahoo, dolphin, tuna, and swordfish to be weighed. Last year the boat “Sea Mixer” out of Orange Beach took the top honors catching and releasing four white marlin and bringing a 167-pound tuna to the dock.

For more information on what you can expect to see this weekend visit the events website at whitemarlinshootout.com.